


Restored (The More or Less Functional Remix)

by Lady_Ganesh



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Remix, hearing loss, remix madness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-12
Updated: 2014-05-12
Packaged: 2018-01-24 10:47:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1602233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Ganesh/pseuds/Lady_Ganesh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint can't hear, but that doesn't mean he doesn't understand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Restored (The More or Less Functional Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marieincolour](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marieincolour/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Only human, after all.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/735294) by [marieincolour](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marieincolour/pseuds/marieincolour). 
  * In response to a prompt by [marieincolour](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marieincolour/pseuds/marieincolour) in the [remixmadness2014](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/remixmadness2014) collection. 



> Written for Remix Madness, so apologies for my handwaving much of the medical details.

Not that anything was particularly routine for the Avengers, but fighting a power-mad dictator in Chicago was probably as routine as it was going to get.

So of course that was when the tread on his boot betrayed him, his boot slid out sideways from the building ledge, and he felt the void underneath him.

_Okay, this is bad._

He'd lost his balance before. Everyone does. Part of your training, figuring out what to do when it all went to hell. True in the circus, true at SHIELD. He's past both of those now, but old habits die hard. But this time....

This time it was too fast, he was just a little older than the last time, a little slower, and the ground came up that much faster.

Later, he remembered grabbing hopelessly at the tower, coming up only with smooth concrete. Someone yelled at him, but he just kept falling.

And then a part of him _did_ make contact with one of the tower's endless ledges.

His dumb luck: it was his head.

Everything went white, then black; for a moment there was a flash of green. _Maybe I ain't gonna die, then._

He woke up slowly. Dreams, first, or maybe hallucinations; hard to be sure. Flashes of color, pressure on his shoulders. Pain.

That part he figured was real. His shoulder, arm, a dull pressure at the back of his head that was probably where he'd hit going down.

Then he opened his eyes and was staring at the dull white ceiling of a hospital. No instruments beeping, which struck him as odd, and odder still when he realized he had a couple tubes in his arm.

Then he realized that he wasn't hearing anything at all. No machine hum, no footsteps. Not even his own breathing.

_Well, shit._

There was someone in the room with him; he didn't see it so much as sense it. He looked over to his right. 

Natasha.

He reached over and tapped her arm, but she didn't flinch, damn her. Someday he was gonna get a jump on her. Someday.

She laughed, and said _How are you feeling?_

Years in the circus had taught him lip reading. Not an accurate science by any means, but there was plenty of context. _Can't hear,_ he said, hoping he didn't say it too loud.

Her eyebrows raised. _That all?_

_Head hurts. Shoulder. Not bad, though. Nothing worse than before._

_You have a buzzing or anything? Or just nothing?_

_Nothing._

The nurse must've come in about then, because she turned her attention to the door and said something he couldn't catch.

He did manage to catch _that's not good, I'll get the doctor._

After that it was a flurry of nurses, specialists, MRIs. Natasha found a tablet and used it for explanations. 

Coulson made it in within forty-eight hours, and it wasn't the way Clint had expected to find out the guy he'd hooked up with a couple of times after missions was getting attached, but it was kind of nice, anyway.

 _Not like I'm something something, anyway,_ Coulson said, and Clint made him type it into the tablet.

 _Not like I'm busy with SHIELD anyway._ His smile was wry.

_Thanks, anyway._

Natasha went back to work; Coulson stayed. Stayed through a thousand tests and the revelation that the loss was permanent and Clint yelled, but there was nothing he could hear. Stayed as Steve and Bruce and Tony and Natasha cycled in and out, always concerned, always worried.

Even Fury showed up once.

That was weird.

Coulson stayed, too, when Tony and Bruce came in, shyly, with the device they'd come up with.

 _It works in a similar manner as a cochlear implant,_ Bruce explained on the pad, _but without damaging anything existing in your ear. I mean._

_Probably not anything existing there, but_

Clint caught Tony saying _stop helping_ as he grabbed the tablet back. 

_It's gonna be noise for a while, but in a day or two it should be a voice._

Coulson stayed through three days of noise, when Clint was ready to punch a wall through something because why wasn't it _working_ yet, and what was all that _crap?_

But that meant that Coulson was the one frying eggs in the morning when Clint opened his eyes and heard the hissing of the fat on the pan. 

And it meant that Coulson's "Good morning" were the first words he heard after those months of silence. 

"I can hear you," he said. "That means I can go back to work, right?" 

"Don't ever change, Clint Barton," Coulson said. He went back to cooking, but Clint could hear his smile.


End file.
